31. Ray

Mom was in the hospital again. Dani called me earlier to let me know she was taking her in. The cough she'd developed a few days ago had gotten worse, and with the development of a fever, the doctor felt it best to have her stay for a few days to get rehydrated and treat the likely pneumonia.

I hadn't told either of them about the pregnancy. Hadn't fully admitted it to myself, either. I knew it was there, could feelit despite it being so small. The symptoms were all there too. Every toss and turn in bed, I was hyper-aware of my stomach and what was growing inside it.

If I chose to keep it, I'd have to tell Wade at some point. I couldn't keep something that big from him, couldn't exactly hide an entire child. But if I didkeep the baby, I'd be looking at a life that Wade would always be a part of. I'd never get away from him, never get over him or be able to get him out of my mind. I'd be the one off to the side at my child's wedding, hiding from the rest of the crowd, left alone and miserable like Wade's dad.

The couch I sat on squeaked as I pulled my knees into my chest. I hadn't expected any of this to happen nor had I wanted it when I'd agreed to the stupid fucking job. How had everything changed so dramatically? How had I gone from a solid, steadfast woman who wouldn't take shit from my boss to a woman with broken down walls, a broken heart, and a baby growing in my uterus?

My only option was to find somewhere else to work. That would solve at least one problem. And the other option—the one that made my gut churn to think about and made me clutch the fabric that covered my stomach—I wasn't sure I was the kind of person that could cope with that, could go through with it. I'd always told myself if it happened I could, but now, faced with that reality, it felt impossible.

I wished I was more like some of the girls I knew in high school. The ones who had shrugged it off. For them, it was easy, but for me, I knew it wouldn't be.

A knock at the door made me pause. I wasn't expecting anyone, not with Mom and Dani at the hospital. There was a chance Mom had ordered something to be delivered, but the clock was ticking close to nine in the evening, and I didn't think delivery drivers came around that hour.

Hesitantly, I stood from the couch. My legs ached. I hadn't moved from it much throughout the day, hadn't had the mental energy to do anything other than watch whatever was playing on the shitty reality TV channel that was on because I couldn't find the remote.

Lifting my eye to the peephole, I could see nothing but darkness and a silhouetted figure on the other side of the door. Our front porch light had broken years ago. I made a mental note to get it fixed.

Another knock, and I jumped from the unexpected urgency of it.

"Who's there?" I called, one hand on the latch and the other flush against the brittle wood. It would snap like a twig if they wanted it to.

"Please open the door, Ray."

My breath caught in my chest. I knew that voice, as muffled as it was through the wooden door. I knew the deep timbre of it, knew the familiar way it spoke my name.

I twisted the lock and pulled the door open.

The one thing I'd been wanting for weeks stood in front of me. Dark blue hoodie, shorts, a plain white shirt. Slippers. He hadn't even taken the time to get dressed.

"Can we talk?" Wade asked, his voice like gravel.

I was suddenly aware of the lack of makeup on my face, the messy bun I'd tied my hair up in, my mismatched pajamas. It shouldn't matter but it did, and I couldn't change that.

I swallowed every bit of saliva that hadn't dried up.

"Yeah," I replied.

He stepped across the threshold onto the plush carpet. The house wasn't clean, the dishes weren't done, the trash hadn't been taken out. All I could think about was the judgment he might make, how small he might think the house was in comparison to his lavish home up in the mountains.

I turned away from him as he shut the door. "I'm sorry, I wasn't expecting company?—"

"I love you."

My feet froze in place mid-stride. My pulse skyrocketed. My stomach dropped.

"Ray."

I turned on one heel and met his gaze. In the soft light of the living room, I could see the bags under his eyes, his unkempt hair. I could hear every breath he took, could feel it in my bones. "Get out," I rasped.

"I'm not letting you shut me out again," he barked, causing me to jump at the sudden change in his demeanor. He took a deep breath in and let it out through his nose, his hands flexing at his sides. "Let me talk. Please. Let me say my goddamn peace."

"How am I supposed to do that when you just said you love me?" I snapped. Mom had been wrong after all. Fight, flight, freeze. I was a fight person.

"I don't know. But you better start figuring it out because I'm not fucking going anywhere. I'm not letting you push me away again."

He grabbed the back of one of the wooden dining table chairs and spun it around. He sat, the fabric of his shorts pulling taut around his thighs, staring at me with enough venom to bite right through. I wasn't sure if fear was my main response or if it was something deeper, something I'd been trying to bury for weeks now.

"I have been driving myself insane for almost a month trying to figure out what the hell happened between us," he started. "I've poured over every conversation. Replayed every second of our time together. Broke my own goddamn heart in the process because reliving that?—"

He cut himself off and rubbed his mouth with the back of his hand, his eyes glazing over. The breath I let out as I waited was shaky, the air vibrating in my throat.

"Reliving that has been the best and the hardest thing I've had to do. Do you know why?"

I shook my head.

"Because I wouldn't change a second of it. I wouldn't have done a single thing differently, Ray, because it led to you. Every shitty remark I made, every condescending little tease, every word I said led us to where we were almost four weeks ago. I thought I'd broken through," he gulped. "I'd torn down your walls time and time again and I thought that was the last time I had to. I could see the light at the end of the tunnel and I was basking in it."

"But it wasn't real," I cut in.

"Bullshit," he snapped. He pushed himself to his feet and walked toward me, irritation and something deeper reflecting in his eyes. Instinctually, I dropped back half a step, putting at least a few inches between us. "It was the most real thing you've ever fucking known. I know it and so do you."

My hands shook as I crossed them over my chest.

"I thought maybe you'd been playing me the whole time," he continued. "I thought you were just in it for the money and once you'd gotten what you needed, you were done. But then, then I replayed it all. And I couldn't find a single sliver of a moment where you were noticeably pretending. Antagonizing, yes. Coy, yes. Desperate, yes. But fake? I don't think you're capable of that, Ray."

"I'm not the one who was faking." The words fell from my tongue before I could think them through, every syllable quivering. He recoiled.

"You think…?" He blinked, his eyes darting left and right as he mulled it over, as the words took shape. "You think I was using you?"

All I could do was stare back at him.

"I haven't faked anything with you," he murmured. "Would I be standing here if I had? Would I have driven all the way here from the resort without taking a second to warn you if I was lying to you? Would I tell you that I loved you if it was all a hoax?"

"I don't know," I whispered. "Maybe you need me for another deal."

"I don't need you for another deal, Ray, I need you because I'm fucking in love with you." Every time he said that it felt like a burning hot knife was being plunged between my ribs. "When you told me you didn't want to go back to how things were, it was the biggest goddamn relief of my life. Bigger than being able to walk again. Bigger than any win I ever had. I was terrified of it ending, baby. I would have given anything to keep you around longer."

The backs of my eyes burned as he stepped closer. I didn't retreat that time, and when his hand met my face, cradling it, brushing his thumb against my cheek, I knew I couldn't fight the tears that would inevitably come.

"I haven't been able to think straight. I haven't been able to work. You should know better than anyone how much I've been pushing things back," he said. And he was right, he had been slacking massively. "I can't think of anything but you, can't dream about anything but you. You are everything I could have ever asked for and I can't just let that fall apart. I want this to be real. I want to be with you. I'm ready for that and you're the only one I want."

He waited for a reply. A single tear escaped and he brushed it away with his thumb, and everything I wanted to say was caught in my throat, a million words silenced because I couldn't work up the nerve. All I could muster was, "I overheard you talking with Zane."

"What?"

"In the parking garage," I sniffled, the words wavering as they spilled. "I heard you tell him that all I was to you was a fucking business transaction. I heard everything."

He exhaled roughly, his body trembling as he held my face in his hands. "I didn't mean any of that. Not a single word, baby. You have to believe that."

"How? How can I?" I whimpered. More tears broke through, dripping down over his thumbs before he could catch them. I didn't know if I could believe him, didn't know if this was just another ruse for some overarching plan of his. Everything was muddied. The pregnancy, his words, the likelihood of none of it being okay.

"You have to trust me," he insisted. "Please, baby, please, trust me. He was threatening to fuck all of it up and I said whatever I needed to just get him out of there. I'm so sorry you had to hear it."

I needed air. I needed room to breathe. I needed to process it, tear it to pieces, and rebuild it from scratch in my mind. What was real, what was fake, what he was feeding me just to make things okay. How could I believe anything that came from his mouth?

How could I believe that he loved me after saying something like that?